“Here you are!” she said, her words coming out in gasps.  “Isn’t it jolly?  Such a fresh old place!  Lots of strawberries—­glad you’ll see it in the long days—­give me a kiss, Loftie—­I’m hungry for a kiss!”

“You’re as wild an imp as ever,” said Loftus, pinching her cheek, but stooping and kissing her, nevertheless, with decided affection.  “Why did you put yourself out of breath, Kitty?  Catch May setting her precious little heart a-beating too fast for any fellow!  Ah, here you come, lazy Mabel.  Where is the mater?  In the house, I suppose?  I say, Kate, what a hole you have pitched upon for living in?  I positively couldn’t ride down upon the thing they offered me at the station.  It wasn’t even clean.  Look at it, my dear girls!  It holds my respectable belongings, and not me.  It’s the scarecrow or ghost of the ordinary station-fly.  Could you have imagined the station-fly could have a ghost?”

“No,” retorted Mabel, “being so scarecrowy and ghost-like already.  Please, driver, take Captain Bertram’s things up to the house.  He heard you speak, Loftie.  These Northbury people are as touchy as if they were somebodies.  Oh, Loftus, you will be disappointed.  Mother has gone to Manchester.”

“To Manchester?” retorted Loftus.  “My mother away from home!  Did she know that I was coming?”

“Yes,” answered Kate, “I told her about your letter last night.”

“Did you show her my letter?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you?  If she had read it she wouldn’t have gone.  I said I was in a scrape.  I was coming down on purpose to see the mater.  You might have sent me a wire to say she would not be at home, or you might have kept her at home by showing her my letter.  You certainly did not act with discretion.”

“I said you’d begin to scold the minute you came here, Loftie,” remarked Mabel.  “It’s a way you have.  I told Kitty so.  See, you have made poor Kitty quite grave.”

Loftus Bertram was a tall, slim, young fellow.  He was well-made, athletic, and neat in appearance, and had that upright carriage and bearing which is most approved of in her Majesty’s army.  His face was thin and dark; he had a look of Kate, but his eyes were neither so large nor so full; his mouth was weak, not firm, and his expression wanted the openness which characterized Catherine’s features.

He was a selfish man, but he was not unkind or ill-natured.  The news which the girls gave him of their mother’s absence undoubtedly worried and annoyed him a good deal, but like most people who are popular, and Loftus Bertram was undoubtedly very popular, he had the power of instantly adapting himself to the exigencies of the moment.

He laughed lightly, therefore, at Mabel’s words, put his arm round his younger sister’s unformed waist, and said, in a gay voice: 

“I won’t scold either of you any more until I have had something to eat.”

“We live very quietly at the Manor,” remarked Mabel, “Mother wants to save, you know.  She says we must keep up our refinement at any cost, but our meals are very—­” she glanced with a gay laugh at Catherine.